Monday, 1 June 2015

Interviewing for Education and Social Science Research: The Gateway Approach,
Carolyn Lunsford Mears, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2009, page 48

Mears starts from

the awareness that an experience does more than trigger cognitive processing.

As well as trying to process an experience at a mental or intellectual level, the human response tiuches of many other levels. Mears continues:

By honouring all dimensions of experience, the gateway model provides access into the sometimes confusing and dark places and addresses the internal component that is often stripped out or neutralised in statistically based research. It offers an integrated process that allows a researcher to capture the essence of an experience on as many levels as are experienced by an individual.

Why is this important?

A fundamental principle of gateway research is that what is learned should reflect the narrators' understanding and be communicated in a way that can inform action that serves an ethical process ... it provides a way of knowing that offers a way of helping.